Continued....The Journey Around The World
At Massava Magellan negotiated Spain's first alliance in the Pacific. At Cebu he converted the king and his chief followers to Christianity. Magellan sailed from Cebu to the neighboring island of Mactan. There he and his men became involved in a fight with the natives, and Magellan was killed on April 27, 1521.
The battle,at which Magellan was killed
The End of the Voyage
Due to the losses at Mactan , merely 110 of the original crew remained and they were unable to man three ships. Therefore, they abandoned the Concepcion, and the other two vessels sailed southward to the Spice Islands . After loading a huge cargo of spices , the leaders of the fleet then decided that the two ships should make separate return voyages.
The Trinidad, under the command of Gonzalo Gomez de Espinosa, tried to sail eastward across the Pacific to the Isthmus of Panama. Bad weather and disease disrupted the voyage, and more than half of the crew of the Trinidad died. The surviving members of the crew were forced to return to the Spice Islands, where the Portuguese imprisoned them.
The Victoria, commanded by Juan Sebastian del Cano, continued its westward voyage back to Spain. Like the Trinidad, the Victoria experienced great hardship, and many of the crew died of malnutrition and starvation. The Victoria finally reached Sanlucar de Barrameda on Sept. 6, 1522, nearly three years after the voyage had begun. Only del Cano and 17 other survivors returned with the ship.
In the history of discovery no name ranks higher than that of Magellan. He opened the Pacific Ocean to new exploration and trade.
John Fiske, the American historian, says:
"The voyage thus ended was doubtless the greatest feat of navigation that has ever been performed, and nothing can be imagined that would surpass it except a journey to some other planet."
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Biography.............Ferdinand Magellan
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